The years under consideration in this volume witnessed the remarkable transformation of Christianity from a persecuted minority sect into the dominant political and cultural force in the Mediterranean world. One aspect of this development was the formation of a set of discourses and practices regarding sexual, marital and familial life. The extension of ecclesiastical (and, to a lesser extent, imperial) authority into areas of human life previously regarded as private produced what has been...

It was in the great hall of Hagia Sophia Cathedral that Justinian convened a council on 5 May 553. Two theological controversies needed to be redressed. The first was the need to reach a consensus about the Christological claims of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret and Ibas of Edessa their works in question were called the 'Three Chapters'. Divergent responses to their writings were leading to further divisions within an already fractious situation. Another set of problems had emerged...

Indicates active devotees to this god.2 In some North African cities, theatres and amphitheatres were still pulling in big audiences, as in the Bulla Regia mentioned by Augustine.3 Some pagan traditions developed into Christian ones. The pagan practice of holding banquets and celebrations on tombs, to keep the anniversary of the death, continued in the Christian tradition. This observance consisted of bread mixed with water and wine, which was first consumed by the visitors (epulis...

'The Son of Man is come to seek and save that which is lost' (Luke 19.19) with this description of their Lord's mission, Christians understandably came to regard salvation and sin as master themes for their lives. In fact, these themes are so pervasive that discussions ofthem take on as many forms as Christianity itself does. This near ubiquity makes it exceedingly difficult to appreciate the subject in a way that does justice to evidence from across the Mediterranean basin and Near East in...

The story of Western Christianities from Constantine to the close of the sixth century is one of both expansion and the formation of diverse Christianities. The expansion is slow and difficult to trace at the beginning of the fourth century, the Western regions of the Roman empire were much less Christianised than the East, only an estimated 2 per cent of the population.1 Although the progress can be tentatively gauged from the archaeological and epigraphic records or from the multiplication of...

The emergence of monasticism in the East, its rapid development in the fourth and fifth centuries and its establishment as a major institution in Christianity are among the most significant phenomena in the history of Christianity. Although asceticism as such has deep roots in ancient society, both in the various religious traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean and in the Greek philosophical tradition, the emergence ofmonasticism constitutes a strikingly rapid and radical change of social,...

In various Central Asian areas, including Kushan. By the end of the fifth century, missionaries including John of Resaina had established churches among the White Huns in Bactria. During this same period there were East Syrian bishoprics established in cities along the Oxus river, in Naishapur, Herat, Gilan and Merv. Other bishoprics were established in Kaskar, Samarkand and Turkmenistan. There were certainly Christians there to support these bishoprics when they were established. In 591,...

Heresiology was the combative theological genre for asserting true Christian doctrine through hostile definition and ecclesiastical exclusion. In the fourth to sixth centuries the union of Christian orthodoxy with Roman political power can easily seem to modern eyes to be a bad match. Emperors peeved by the inability of religious practitioners to come to an enforceable consensus for the protection of the state worked with bishops increasingly polarised by local traditions and civic unrest in a...

As schisms within the churches of the Nicene tradition broke out after Chalcedon, the emperors and bishops of Constantinople faced the consequences. They tried to re-integrate Nicaeno-Chalcedonian Christianity 27 ILCV 980. The inscription is dedicated to St John the Evangelist, at whose shrine in Ephesus Hilary had prayed for help. See A. Mandouze, Prosopographie, ii.i 989-92 H. Chadwick, The church in ancient society, 558-67. 28 This episode is discussed by K.-H. Uthemann in ch. 19, below. 29...

So that visitors collected oil, earth, water, dust or a rock from the place. Chrysostom catalogues these devotions in one sermon delivered at a martyr's festival Stay beside the tomb of the martyr there pour out fountains of tears. Have a contrite mind raise a blessing from the tomb. Take her as an advocate in your prayers and immerse yourself perpetually in the stories of his struggles. Embrace the coffin, nail yourself to the chest. Not just the martyrs' bones, but even their tombs and chests...

Near the beginning of the period covered by this volume, Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, the celebrated 'father of church history', composed two addresses in which he praised the accomplishments of Constantine's reign. Toward its end, another Christian clergyman, the deacon Agapetus, addressed a series of aphorisms on kingship to the emperor Justinian.1 The two works serve as a convenient means to bracket the monumental changes that the church underwent during these centuries as it moved from the...

The earliest biblical confessions of Jesus were varied, yet linked. He was the Messiah, the fulfilment of Israel's hopes and the eschatological accomplishment of God's reign, even as he was also a prophet promised by Moses and a teacher in the wisdom tradition. His death demonstrated God's salvation his resurrection proclaimed him alive. Therefore, as the Christian community moved from the Old Testament, the word ofGod, to the Christian Bible, these different Christologies were connected....

As long as both the unity and distinction were safeguarded and neither an 'Arian' subordinationism nor a 'Sabellian' modalism was intended. The Alexandrian council thus based its terminological tolerance on an admission from both sides of the validity of the other's emphasis, whether that be the unity of the substance or the irreducible reality ofthe three divine subsistents. However, the lack of terminological consensus continued to undermine the commitment to tolerance, which was further...

Respects so vital for the future of Christianity in the West, as the towering genius of Augustine alone assured. Africa is usually considered the most 'Christianised' region of the Western empire. There were about 250 episcopal sees in all Roman Africa around the year 300 by the early fifth century, the number had soared to 650.137 During the fourth century the majority of the often only superficially Romanised population apparently became Christian.138 At the beginning of the fifth century,...

As with Gaul, the watershed for Christianity in Spain was the invasion of various Germanic nations from 406 7. In 409, the Vandals, Alans and Sueves crossed the Pyrenees and wrought havoc in the provinces of Roman Spain. Only Tarraconnensis remained under Roman rule. Between 416 and 418, victorious Visigothic forces now Roman allies repelled the Alans and the Siling Vandals. In 429 the Vandals left Spain for North Africa. In two invasions 468 and 472 3 , the Visigothic king Euric brought Spain...